Originally published in the Summer/Fall 2025 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 77, printed December 11. Reproduced here for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Summer/Fall 2025 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For other issues dating back to 2012, see the Full Issues page.

By Phil Wilayto

NORFOLK, VA, Nov. 22 — Of all the protests taking place around the world against escalating U.S. aggression against Venezuela, probably none are more significant than the one held today outside the Norfolk Naval Station in Norfolk, Va., homeport for many of the Navy ships now stationed in the Caribbean.

Despite intermittent rain showers, about two dozen activists held signs and chanted slogans for nearly two hours outside the station’s main gate as active-duty members and civilian workers drove inand out of the base.

Significantly, supportive honks and thumbs-up outnumbered the few hostile responses.

“It was important to hold the protest because our government is killing people extrajudicially in the Caribbean, and it is also using its continued illegal occupation of Puerto Rico to do so,” said Ezra, an organizer with the Puerto Rican Historical Collective, a sponsor of today’s protest.

“Norfolk, as the largest naval base andthe one sending the most ships to the region, has a direct responsibility for those deaths,” Ezra said. “And as people in the belly of the beast, and as Puerto Ricans in particular, it is important to amplify the calls of those being directly impacted by warships sent straight from here. Norfolk is an extremely important place to build and strengthen the antiwar movement, and specifically the anti-NATO movement.”

Other organizations sponsoring the protest were Juventud Unida por la Independencia, Adolfina, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective and Veterans for Peace 757. Members of several other organizations attended, including the Norfolk Catholic Worker and the Virginia Defenders forFreedom, Justice & Equality.

It’s not surprising that four out of the five organizations co-sponsoring today’s protest are Puerto Rican. In September, the Navy reactivated the Roosevelt Roads base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, part of the recent military build-up in the area.

The base had been closed since 2004. As stated in a press release announcing today’s protest, “This move highlights the continued colonial dominance of Puerto Rico as the U.S. ignores decades of struggle waged to close the bases in the archipelago.”

When it comes to the U.S. military, few states are more important than Virginia. The “Old Dominion” is home to the Pentagon, which has given President Trump options for aggression against Venezuela. It also hosts the headwaters of the Central Intelligence Agency, which Trump has authorized to carry out covert operations on Venezuelan soil; as well as the Norfolk Naval Station, the world’s largest, and headquarters for the Navy’s Atlantic Fleet.

Many of the dozen or so ships now deployed to the Caribbean are homeported in Norfolk, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier. Along with thousands of marines and sailors, this is the largest U.S. deployment in Latin America in decades.

To date, more than 80 people have been killed in U.S. attacks on some 20 small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific under the pretext, without evidence, that they were transporting drugs. These extralegal killings can legitimately be considered murders.

Significantly, on Nov. 18, six members of Congress, all veterans or former intelligence officers, released a video reminding members of the military and intelligence officers that they have the right – and the duty – to refuse illegal orders.

Coincidentally, Nov. 20 marked the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, which established the legal precedent that acting under orders is not a defense against charges of committing war crimes or crimes against humanity.